


The Wonders of ProgRock

by someoneplsloverobbierotten



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Babies, Fluff, Gen, If you take it that way, but mainly happy ones dw, i definatly was thinkin sad thoughts when i was writing it, i guess??, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-27 00:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10798155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someoneplsloverobbierotten/pseuds/someoneplsloverobbierotten
Summary: Without a doubt, the best thing that Clara Oswald has ever seen is the Doctor holding a four month old baby.And she's seen alotof things.





	The Wonders of ProgRock

**Author's Note:**

> a little thing i thought of whilst visiting a nursery. apologies for any terrible tense.

Now admittedly, Clara Oswald has seen a lot of things. Travelling with the Doctor has opened her eyes to the wondrous sights of the universe. She’s seen stars and galaxies and people and planets that she never could’ve even imagined, beautiful, staggering, overwhelming things that make her question her tiny little speck of an existence.

None of them come _close_ to this though.

They’d been looking into some oddness that they’d stumbled across on a planet in some corner of the Andromeda. The planet itself is quite nice, Clara likes it, it’s very pretty and the inhabitants are so nice. There’s not that much difference between them and humans, really - aside from bioluminescent hair and freckles. And the fact that they have fins. And tails. And spend as much time in the water as they do on land. See, honestly, not that much different at all.

Anyway, they’d been investigating some weird goings on in the village they’d landed in and during an interview that they were conducting in a local household - because they are of course official, professional inspectors with official, professional paperwork and identification - the stay-at home-father they were speaking too suddenly says “oh, My’kaa said they’d seen something funny the other day, I’ll just go get them!” and promptly dumps his daughter in the Doctor’s arms - because this is apparently one of those cultures that do ‘village parenting’ or whatever it is and therefore leaving their tiny babies with complete strangers is no biggie (either that or it’s just really obvious that the Doctor is a big softie and is about as dangerous as a teddy bear to the four month old) - and dives into the indoor pool that connects to the village’s system.

In his previous body, with his previous mind, she has no doubt that he would’ve swept the child into his arms with ease and delighted her with funny faces and silly voices. In this one, Clara expects uncertainty and awkwardness; perhaps even a hilarious sort of fear.

She’s not disappointed.

As expected, the Doctor freezes, breath held and eyes bugging out as his skinny arms lock stiffly around Cyd’ah. He looks terrified, the poor thing, like he’s a second away from just setting her down and legging it.

After a few seconds of just watching the terror unfold, Clara takes pity on the Doctor and moves to take Cyd’ah from him, only to have the Doctor clutch her closer. She pauses, not expecting that.

The Doctor almost looks as surprised as she does, shocked at his own actions. It seems to scare him a bit, actually. Something in his eyes begs her not to question his reaction, so she doesn’t.

“I was just gonna tell you to move your arm a bit,” she lies, speaking softly so as not to spook him. He’s like a deer sometimes. “She’s not got enough support under her bum.”

It’s like a switch flips in his brain or something because he automatically shifts his position, sitting her in the crook of his elbow so he can hold his arm along her back, her little turquoise freckled head supported in his hand, his other wrapping around her waist.

It’s… an unexpected change, and it makes her blink. He almost looks- no, he does look comfortable with her. In the way he’s holding her at least. Cyd’ah seems quite content in his arms too, tipping her head to look up at him. He doesn’t pull funny faces or use a silly voice, but she seems happy enough anyway, just watching him.

The movement catches his attention and he looks down at her, their eyes meet and they stare at each other for a little bit. Then the Doctor breaks away, shaking himself out of his little trance, and turns back to Clara.

“Go snoop,” he tells her.

She scoffs a little, but to be honest her curiosity is killing her and she’s quite used to doing this by now. Her sense of morals allows her the scoff, but her curiosity overrides it enough that that’s all she gets before she turns away to start looking through the house. She snoops her very best, looking at photos and knick-knacks and letters and in drawers.

Every now and then she looks up and sees Cyd’ah watching her from the Doctor’s arms. The man himself has his eyes set on the baby though. It’s adorable. He clearly finds the little one so fascinating, and she turns back to her snooping with a smile every time.

After a short while the baby turns away, more interested in trying to stick a webbed little hand in the Doctor’s curls. He doesn’t seem to mind; all of his usual protests at people touching him absent for once. Until she tangles her fingers in one of them and _yanks_ , that is, then he’s carefully removing it.

He starts talking to her instead, to keep her attention. She seems fascinated by his brogue, not used to hearing such a rumble from her culture. They’re a bit clickier, is how Clara would describe it, but the way the Doctor is talking to her now, soft and gentle, is almost like a purr. Cyd’ah’s enraptured by it, hanging on to the Doctor’s every word as he tells her about space and water physics and loads of other things she isn't going to understand.

Neither of them seem to care about that, however, so Clara just lets him waffle on to his hearts’ content.

Eventually she has to stop snooping, alerted to Akkan’ya’s return by the Doctor. Seconds after the man's hissed “ _Clara_ ”, the father returns, pulling himself up from the pool alongside someone else. By this point Clara’s stood innocently near the Doctor with her hands behind her back; the very picture of someone who definitely _hasn’t_ been doing some grade-A snooping 8 seconds beforehand.

Akkan’ya makes no move to take his daughter back, seemingly very happy to let the Doctor continue wandering slowly around the room and tell her about the his favourite Hendrix guitar. Cyd’ah doesn’t seem to be in any rush to go back to her father either, perfectly fine listening to the Doctor.

It’s sweet, how gentle he is with her. He might not show it outwardly, but he’s going to be so upset when they have to leave, she just knows it. It makes her heart ache a little. In the meantime, she commits the scene to memory; the Doctor doing a snail-paced waltz around the room with a tiny, slightly glowing baby in his arms, teaching her about ProgRock and smiling.


End file.
